1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a biomarker associated with a cancer and a method using the biomarker to evaluate the risk of proliferation, invasion, or metastasis of a cancer and, more particularly, to a biomarker and a method using the biomarker which can be used to evaluate the risk of proliferation, invasion, or metastasis of cancer in an early stage.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, it is found that foods or food additives, and environmental pollutions are blamed for directly causing cancer. It is also found that not only in Taiwan, but also in the developed countries around the whole world, the incidence rates of cancers are quite high. Additionally, according to the data published by the American Cancer Society, cancer is perhaps the most significant threat to public health.
If the proliferation, invasion, or metastasis of cancers can be detected in the early stage, the survival rate of patients with cancers can be greatly increased. Hence, many studies focus on developing methods for analyzing or predicting cancers in the early stage. Currently, as the developments of gene profiling and proteomics, biomarkers for analyzing or predicting cancers are well developed, such as α-fetoprotein (AFP), T-cell lymphoma invasion and metastasis 1 (TIAM1), and N-cadherin.
However, all of them are applied with limitations. For example, AFP is a useful serological marker for diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but it showed 40% false-negative. Furthermore, up-regulation of N-cadherin is only correlated with recurrence after surgery, and TIAM1 overexpression was observed in 63.8% poor prognosis of HCC patients. Besides, since these proteins also expresses in normal liver tissue, the determination of pathological overexpression of given protein may not be easy. Hence, it is desirable to provide a biomarker and a method using the biomarker, which can improve the accuracy of predicting the risk of proliferation, invasion, or metastasis of a cancer.
In addition, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), i.e. liver cancer, is the fifth-most common cancer worldwide and shows high prevalence in Asia and Africa. Despite the heterogeneous etiology, one unique feature of HCC is its aggressiveness with early vascular invasion and metastasis. If the proliferation and the invasion/metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma can be predicted in the early stage, the incidence rate and the mortality of the liver cancer can be greatly decreased. Therefore, it is also desirable to provide a biomarker and a method using the biomarker, which can predict the risk of proliferation, invasion, or metastasis of a liver cancer precisely.